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Following that news, HPE on the same day (Jan. 17) announced that it will acquire software-defined hyperconverged storage provider SimpliVity for $650 million in cash. The deal is expected to close in Q2 2017.

Further reading

Privately held SimpliVity was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Westborough, Mass. The company's software-defined, hyperconverged infrastructure is an original design aimed to meet the needs of enterprise customers who require on-premises technology infrastructure with enterprise-class performance, data protection, and resiliency, at cloud economics.

The combined HPE and SimpliVity portfolio will offer a large set of enterprise data services across hyperconverged, 3PAR storage, composable infrastructure and multi-cloud offerings, HPE Vice-President of Marketing for the Software-Defined & Cloud Business Group Paul Miller told eWEEK.

--always-on compression and de-duplication that guarantees 90 percent capacity savings across storage and backup; and--policy-based VM-centric management that simplifies operations and enables data mobility, making development teams and end-users more productive.

HPE's software division moves out to join Micro Focus as a new storage entity moves in. As Rick Blaine, the central character in the classic 1942 movie "Casablanca" said: "Well, that's the way it goes: One in, one out."

The focus on storage is certainly understandable. The creation of data is booming, has been for a long while and isn't expected to slow down anytime soon, so there is plenty of demand for places to store it all. The hyperconverged market was estimated to be approximately $2.4 billion in 2016 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 25 percent, to nearly $6 billion, by 2020.

Miller told eWEEK that he believes little or none of SimpliVity's product line will overlap with HPE's current offerings.

For current HPE customers and partners, the company will continue to offer its existing hyperconverged products, the HC 380 and the HC 250. For SimpliVity customers and partners, there will be no immediate change in the product roadmap, and HPE will continue to support existing SimpliVity customers and platforms, Miller said.

SimpliVity Omni Stack Will Be Integrated into ProLiant Servers

Within 60 days of closing the transaction, HPE intends to offer the SimpliVity Omni Stack software qualified for its ProLiant DL380 servers. In the second half of 2017, the company will offer a range of integrated HPE SimpliVity hyperconverged systems based on HPE ProLiant Servers.

"This transaction expands HPE's software-defined capability and fits squarely within our strategy to make Hybrid IT simple for customers," HPE President and CEO Meg Whitman said. "More and more customers are looking for solutions that bring them secure, highly resilient, on-premises infrastructure at cloud economics. That's exactly where we're focused."

Whether Kempel will remain with HPE for the time being wasn't part of the news announcement. Kempel previously has been with EMC and Diligent, which was bought by IBM in 2010.

"SimpliVity's software will significantly advance HPE's vision to make hybrid IT simple, bringing a modern software-defined enterprise data service across its hyperconverged, 3PAR storage, composable infrastructure and multi-cloud offerings," said Antonio Neri, Executive Vice President and General Manager of HPE's Enterprise Group.

What a Competitor Says About the Deal

Ron Nash, CEO of SimpliVity competitor Pivot3, told eWEEK that the deal eventually should help position HPE for better success in HPI storage market but that it will take time to integrate the two companies and technologies and provide a strong solution to the market.

"Plus, SimpliVity is a mid-market vendor, which is not HPE's sweet-spot market. So they will have to recalibrate their solutions for HPE's more traditional market and those customers' enterprise-grade data, scale, and processing needs," Nash said. Nash's general take on the importance of the acquisition to the enterprise market:

"It's clear that all the major IT companies covet this market. They are realizing they can't compete with a repackaged converged solution, and they have to have technology that is truly hyperconverged and is architected to meet the needs of customers. Customers require software-defined infrastructure that is agile, flexible and scalable to support the needs of the business, and they need it to scale to enterprise volumes.

"As adoption of HCI continues, customers will be demanding capabilities to support multiple mixed workloads on consolidated infrastructure. Every major vendor will need to have a solution in this space."